With Bridging the Scenes the festivals offer a special exchange opportunity for interested producers, production managers and self-producing artists from the independent performing arts communities in Sofia and Berlin. The program provides space for encounter and common experiments and visions!

Bridging the Scenes presents six artists and/or production managers from Sofia and Berlin with the opportunity to participate in both festivals as an observer. On the introductory day (the first day of both festivals) with workshops and presentations, the participants get to know each-other as well as the respective local scene and the local funding bodies relevant for potential future collaborations.

During the entire time of the festival, the participants discover the aesthetics and working methods in each country. They attend the discussion events in the schedule of programming for visiting industry professionals and benefit from the diverse networking opportunities provided by the Festivals, entering into exchange with Berlin’s and Sofia’s independent performing arts community. A local expert will guide them through the whole experience and support their exchanges and networking. The group will have daily informal morning meetings with the local Guide.

The ambition of Bridging the Scene is to create long-lasting collaboration between the participants, their professional inclusion in the European independent scene and to develop possibilities for coproductions, common projects and performance exchange between Berlin and Sofia.

Conditions for participating producers, production managers and self-producing artists

Young to mid-career professional artists, producers and production managers with no more than eight years of working experience from the independent performing arts communities in Sofia and Berlin are welcome to apply under the following conditions:

The registered address of the participant is in one of the two cities.

The participant confirms to have time to visit Berlin from June 5-11, 2018

The participant confirms that he has time to visit Sofia from October 19-25, 2018.

The participants should have a good command of English language.

After the festival, all participants are asked to submit a written report about their Festival observations, experiences and outcomes (1800 signs).

Participants will be accredited as professional visitors. As such the will be provided with:

Application process:

For the application, we kindly ask for a short biography (max. 800 signs) and an explanation of why Bridging the Scenes fits your interest and what exactly you are particularly interested in. The required documents need to be written in English.